Userpass auth method

The userpass auth method allows users to authenticate with Vault using a username and password combination.

The username/password combinations are configured directly to the auth method using the users/ path. This method cannot read usernames and passwords from an external source.

The method lowercases all submitted usernames, e.g. Mary and mary are the same entry.

This documentation assumes the Username & Password method is mounted at the default /auth/userpass path in Vault. Since it is possible to enable auth methods at any location, please update your CLI calls accordingly with the -path flag.

Authentication

Via the CLI

$ vault login -method=userpass \
    username=mitchellh \
    password=foo

Via the API

$ curl \
    --request POST \
    --data '{"password": "foo"}' \
    http://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/auth/userpass/login/mitchellh

The response will contain the token at auth.client_token:

{
  "lease_id": "",
  "renewable": false,
  "lease_duration": 0,
  "data": null,
  "auth": {
    "client_token": "c4f280f6-fdb2-18eb-89d3-589e2e834cdb",
    "policies": ["admins"],
    "metadata": {
      "username": "mitchellh"
    },
    "lease_duration": 0,
    "renewable": false
  }
}

Configuration

Auth methods must be configured in advance before users or machines can authenticate. These steps are usually completed by an operator or configuration management tool.

1. Enable the userpass auth method:

   $ vault auth enable userpass
   

   Enable the userpass auth method at the default auth/userpass path. You can choose to enable the auth method at a different path with the -path flag:

   $ vault auth enable -path=<path> userpass
   

2. Configure it with users that are allowed to authenticate:

   $ vault write auth/<userpass:path>/users/mitchellh \
       password=foo \
       policies=admins
   

   This creates a new user "mitchellh" with the password "foo" that will be associated with the "admins" policy. This is the only configuration necessary.

User lockout

If a user provides bad credentials several times in quick succession, Vault will stop trying to validate their credentials for a while, instead returning immediately with a permission denied error. We call this behavior "user lockout". The time for which a user will be locked out is called “lockout duration”. The user will be able to login after the lockout duration has passed. The number of failed login attempts after which the user is locked out is called “lockout threshold”. The lockout threshold counter is reset to zero after a few minutes without login attempts, or upon a successful login attempt. The duration after which the counter will be reset to zero after no login attempts is called "lockout counter reset". This can defeat both automated and targeted requests i.e, user-based password guessing attacks as well as automated attacks.

The user lockout feature is enabled by default. The default values for "lockout threshold" is 5 attempts, "lockout duration" is 15 minutes, "lockout counter reset" is 15 minutes.

The user lockout feature can be disabled as follows:

• It can be disabled globally using environment variable VAULT_DISABLE_USER_LOCKOUT.
• It can be disabled for all supported auth methods (ldap, userpass and approle) or a specific supported auth method using the disable_lockout parameter within user_lockout stanza in configuration file. Please see user lockout configuration for more details.
• It can be disabled for a specific auth mount using "auth tune". Please see auth tune command or auth tune api for more details.

API

The Userpass auth method has a full HTTP API. Please see the Userpass auth method API for more details.